tv FOX Report FOX News November 20, 2011 4:00pm-5:00pm PST
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presentation of fox news. >> breaking now on the fox report. we are awaiting a news conference from new york city mayor michael bloomberg and we are hearing it is terrorism related. i'm harris falkner. this is the fox report. we understand roughly 30 minutes from now mayor bloomberg will be joined by the new york city police commissioner and the manhattan district attorney to provide the details on this. so far this is what we've been able to collect. local reports saying police have a man in custody after he was preparing explosive material, and they say he was a lone wolf. when they step up to the podium, of course, we will bring you this news conference live. but the news now terrorism-related news conference coming from the mayor of new york. and a fox urgent. it looks like they can't get it done.
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the supercommittee, that team of lawmakers tasked with cutting our deficit or else, apparently choosing the "or else" part or at least that's the latest we are monitoring right now. we are look live at our nation's capitol and at this moment new signs negotiations to slash more than $1 trillion from the budget are unraffling. a short time the white house urging the supercommittee to do its job and make the tough choices. our journalists working on the hill and reporting back at this hour that six democrats and six republicans on that committee cannot agree on what to cut. >> nobody wants to give up hope. reality is to some extent starting to overtake hope. i think we are deep into the fourth quarter but there is still time on the clock. i don't think any of us wants to let the time run out without trying everything possible to get that. >> there and if they can't get there the consequences will affect every single more than's.
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failure triggers a 1.$2 trillion cut in spending on everything from military to medicare to seniors by 2013. the u.s. credit rating also on the line for the second time this year. another down grade could punch holes in our economy by sending interest rates higher on home loans and credit cards and other items. we are live in washington with the news. molly, the question is is the supercommittee about to make the super decision to quit? >> hi. it appears so. they are discussing how to bring their efforts to an end without a deal and that likely will come sometime tomorrow. earlier today one democratic senator not on the supercommittee was asking president obama to get involved. >> if it doesn't work then no one has done enough on it. and he's the leader of this great country. we want him to step forward. >> in order to vote on wednesday, the committee would have to get details on any kind of deal to the congressional budget office or c. b. o. by
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tomorrow night at the latest. that appears to be unlikely. >> what about wiggle room to stop automatic cuts from happening? >> on capitol hill there's almost always wiggle room and have have alluded to some, there is a way to change the law. but some are making the case why the other side is preventing a deal from coming together. >> republicans offered both entitlement reform and faction reform but if we aren't able to reach that then we at least thought maybe there could be a colessens around the savings that we pretty much agreed to earlier which amount today $640 billion but even there democrats were not willing to cut a dollar without raising taxes. >> we are not a tax cut committee. we are a deficit reduction committee. and the extension of the bush tax cuts is a huge tax cut for the well think at the expense of the average person in this country. we think that's wrong. if they will take that off the table, we could have a
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$1.2 trillion agreement by tomorrow morning. >> but apparently it's all a gap too wide to bridge. sources are telling fox to watch the supercommittee tomorrow. there may be a paper announcement or a formal press conference saying it's over. harris. >> all right. we will be watching molly henneberg, one of our fox journalists and we will follow the meltdown. we will bring you the updates as they come into our newsroom tonight and tomorrow. coming up, a closer dollar for dollar look at your bottom line if the supercommittee fails to cut the budget. also tonight on the fox report. >> bracing for what could be the most expensive holiday travel season yet for americans. an airline is ready to rake in the cash. new information out on the staggering amount of money flyers are spending on the checked baggage fees. why you might want to ship the gifts instead of bringing them
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onboard. also, new fallout in the wake of this video. now action taken against the police officers who pepper sprayed occupy protestors. fair or not? tonight fox report, you decide. and freak out at a car dealership lot. was it the cellphone conversation this guy was having? who knows. how police put anw3 end to this ram paneling that took a heavy financial toll. >> fox news is america's election headquarters and a major endorsement for one of the candidates seeking the republican nomination for president. former massachusetts governor mitt romney getting the backing of senator kelly iwa of new hampshire. she made her announcement earlier today while romney campaigns in her state.
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>> there's one person in this field prepared to lead the united states of america and that's mitt romney. >> i appreciate that. she has a lot of friends in this state and her commitment to hold down spending is stark contrast to that which you are seeing in washington today. >> president turning now to iow. just mentioned the caucus there on january 3rd. a major majority rather of gop candidates in the hawkeye state this weekend. six of them gathering for a forum to talk about their policies and their personal views. in a few moments -- and a few moments got quite personal. [applause] >> six republican presidential candidates sitting around a thanksgiving-themed table at a packed church in des moines, at times getting personal. rick santorum had tears talking
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about how he dealt with his daughter's severe disability. >> i decided the best thing i could do was to treat her differently and love her like i did because it wouldn't hurt as much if i lost her. >> former house speaker newt gingrich discussing a struggle of his own in his early years. >> i found myself, you know, as an emerging national figure reading the big book and trying to understand where i had failed and why i was empty and why i had to turn to god. and i think that had i not had that experience, had i not had that intervention, i might literally had collapsed totally. >> and this is herman cain talking about the difficulties of trying to turn around a national restaurant chain. >> and i believe i have had a searries of little failures rather than one great big one
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disaster. one that i -- one little failure in my mind was i didn't believe that i was home enough when my kids were growing up. >> also at the table minnesota congresswoman michele bachman who described the pain and uncertainty of her parents divorce. >> it is amazing to me how god uses those challenges to really shape your life. >> and there were some laughs, too. texas congressman ron paul joking around with texas governor rick perry about one famous moment. >> we don't need the department of education, we need those things stain care of at the state level. >> and the energy department, too. [laughter] >> the candidates making sure to highlight how their religious and personal beliefs influence their political policy. a recent des moines poll showed 37% of likely gop caucus-goers
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in iowa recognize themselves as born again christians. breaking now on the fox report. we want to get back to the news as it is coming in. we are awaiting a news conference from new york city mayor michael bloomberg. we are hearing it is terrorism related. more information, though, coming in ahead of that news conference which is playing about 21 minutes from now. i want to go now live to our new york city newsroom from laura engel is standing by with some of the details that are starting to come in. laura. >> hi, harris. we are monitoring all the local reports right now. what we can share with you is apparently this was a man who was arrested yesterday here in the new york city area. he had a plan, according to our sources to build and detonate a bomb in new york with they say government workers, returning military personnel and elected officials as the target. again we are waiting for this news conference for confirmation on all of this once we hear it from mayor michael bloomberg, commissioner kelly and the
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manhattan district attorney, cyrus vance. we understand the defend is jose. they are describing it as a lone wolf scenario. he lives in new york with his mother. again, in 20 minutes we've got this news conference that we are monitoring to bring you the very latest. but this is apparently a man who has been under investigation since december of 2009. he has been closely watched and officials moved in on him this weekend because they say that he had bought bomb-making materials and he began to build them. those are the local reports we are hearing right now. again, more on that coming up in the next 20 minutes. >> all right. laura, thank you very much. all eyes here in new york and around the nation watching for the details from mayor bloomberg just moments away. we will check back with laura as the news warrants and, of course, bring you are that news conference live here on fox news channel. within the next 19 minutes we are told. no reason to think they will be
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running off time so we are sticking with that. we will update you as we can. do you think that there is anything that should happen to police officers who had a certain confrontation with occupy protesters recently? we showed you the video. it looks like they are being pepper prayed and just sitting there. a lot of fallout, though, with this. we will bring you the latest. you are watching the most powerful news, fox. [ rge ] psst. constated? phillips' caplet use gnesium, an ingredient that works more naturally wityour colon than stimulant xatives, for fective reli of constipation without cramps. thanks. [ professor ] good morning students. today, we're gonna...
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that's so cool! yeah, that was awesome! [ cheering ] i wanna see that again. ♪ >> a fox urgent now. a u.s. congressman responding tonight to allegations of sexual misconduct brought against him. dale kilde of michigan said those accusations, quote, are completely false and shameful. this is just coming into fox news. our senior capitol hill fox news producer, chad, is going to join me by phone. let's begin first of all by telling the audience what the accusations are against the congressman. >> family members of congressman
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accuse him of abusing his second cousin more than 50 years ago when the younger male cousin was 12 years old. he sternly rejected those charges. he regrets having to air it in public but he said he had no choice. he called the accusations completely false and shameful. he goes on to say this is a concerted effort by distant relatives, two of whom have a long history of mental illness, to destroy my reputation about something that has never taken place. >> you and i went back and forth in e-mails tonight and just to give the viewers a chance to catch up on mr. kildee, he's 80 years old, he's a former seminarian and taught latin at a high school. he served on the house page board. any more that you can tell us from this kind of point-on-point response from him tonight? >> it's very asking -- interesting.
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we several times to contact him. went out to his house and tried to get him to comment. it's remarkable that very few people on capitol hill had any suggestion of this. and people who know him, this comes as a big surprise. he had a remarkable string of never missing a roll call vote in the house of representatives for more than 15 years, more than 8100 votes. when i reached out to various members congressional leadership and people with michigan politics they were stunned that anyone would make a charge like this againstdale kildee. >> i have a copy of the statement in front of me now. i understand congressman kildee is saying this is a concerted effort by distant relatives, two of whom have a long history of mental illness. can you explain this? >> he said one is in a psychiatric hospital, a mental institution. he said the cousin who alleged that he had the inappropriate contact with some 50 years ago,
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he hasn't heard from in 23 years. and he pulled out a letter that was sent to his congressional office in 1988 which talks a lot about foreign aid. this is an example to show that i have no problem with this cousin. he wrote to me about hunger in zimbabwe, of all things. the congressman is saying this is quite remarkable to not have contact with somebody for 23 jeers then have a charge of this magnitude, considering what we've been hearing in the last couple weeks from penn state and syracuse, leveled at a member of congress. >> our senior producer on capitol hill tonight, give us the context of why this is happening now? >> again, i've talked to a lot of folks on capitol hill that that of this could be just that, the penn state effect. someone saiding congress is too big an institution when you have something like penn state happening that somebody here, when you have 535 members, that someone wouldn't be accused here.
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if there is something to the charge, some questions are going to have to be answer the because this is a fellow who taught high school in a catholic high school some 50 years ago and was picked to serve on the page board. they have now disbanded the house page program after some problems with that stemming from the mark foley scandal some years ago when i was accused of sending inappropriate text messages to teenage male pages. if there is something to discharge, they will have to answer questions about whydale kildee was serving on the page board to oversee the teenage pages. >> i know from the summer he was set up to run for re-election and then he said in july he wasn't going to do that. >> he's served here since 1977. he's 82 years old. you know, it comes as no surprise that somebody who served in congress that long and gets into their 80s might want to retire. certainly his wife has had some health problems. she had a partial mastectomy a couple weeks ago and he's had
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some minor health problems in years past. there are questions. people are saying he initially said he was going to run for re-election and then they said, no, he's not going to. some people are trying to figure out if there's something connected to that. again, it probably would have been a tougher race fordale kildee. they are drawing new district maps in michigan. it's a swing state. they knocked off older, more senior democrats in the last election cycle. he would probably be somebody that the republicans, if he were stand fourth re-election would really put a target on, try to beat him in the election. but that raises the question why would political opponents raise this if he's not going to stand for re-election? >> congressmandale kildee out of michigan refuting these allegations. you mentioned the penn state effect and don't know what might have triggered this but either way he's responding to those allegations tonight. chad, thank you very much. now to our other breaking news. we are awaiting a news
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conference from new york city mayor michael bloomberg on a terror related announcement. as that happens in the next 11 minutes or so we will bring it to you right here live on fox. stay close. nobody's playing anyl after we get our homework done. thank you. hello? test drive's not over yet. [ male announcer ] it's practically yours. [ louder ] hello? but we still need your signature. right now during sign then drive it's never been easier to get the all-new passat, the 2012 motor trend car of the year, for practically just your signature. that's the power of german engineering. visit vwdealer.com. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, available only with berty mutual auto insurance,
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>> a fox urgent. we are continuing to wait for a news conference we are told moments away from new york city mayor michael bloomberg on a terror-related announcement. our pentagon correspondent is standing by. before we get to jennifer i want to bring some new information from the associated press wires that's coming in. a person close to the new york city police investigation said a manhattan resident suspected plotting to bomb various targets, including police cars in new york city, has been arrested. the person told the associated press the 27-year-old man was acting as a lone wolf. of course, we heard our correspondent laura engel saying
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that moments ago. and he was taken into custody yesterday. allegedly was inspired by al-qaeda. although his citizenship was not immediately known. let's get to jennifer griffin. joining us by phone, a pentagon correspondent, to give us a perspective on this. >> this is an unusual press conference to come on sunday night at 7:30:00 p.m. you would expect for the new york city mayor and the police chief to be making this sort of announcement about a terrorist that it would have federal implications. we are told from a source the fbi was not contacted, is not involved in this case, that this is a local matter in new york city. as you mentioned, this is a 27-year-old american who has been taken into custody. they have been watching him for the last 2 1/2 years but the last six months he started to assemble a bomb. we have the holidays coming up
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and i think the new york city authorities are concerned with so much travel taking place that they just want to alert people to be alert. this is a lone wolf, an american who was caught, based on information from an informant. this person was allegedly building a bomb, some sort of bomb that could have targeted, we are told, either u.s. service members returning back from overseas or else police cars and other kind of -- sort of police vehicles in new york city. >> all right, jennifer. i want to draw everybody's attention to the right of their screen. we are now able to be see the room in which mayor bloomberg is expected to appear moments from now to talk about this terror related incident, investigation, i should say, here in new york city. they are gathering in the room. local media are there and some of his own people are there because i can see them in the center of the room. we are expecting this to happen about 4 1/2 minutes from now. no reason to believe we are off schedule so we will stick with this. jennifer, i know you watch this
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sort of thing on a daily basis, not just when we know of local news. would it be a person that you would know about that would be on some sort of a list? >> no. in fact i've reached out to federal authorities on this, and this is really a case, it's a local case in new york city. it is not somebody who was necessarily on any sort of national watch list. it's not somebody like remember the bomber who attempted to bring a car bomb into time square who had been trained in pakistan, had gone to pakistan for training. this is in the that kind of case. it looks like this is someone trained on the internet. >> jennifer griffin, as the news warrants, as we start to get even more detail, we may bring you back on this. you say it does not right now have wider implications but we don't know exactly what is going to be said. we haven't gotten a whole lot of information directly from the mayor's office on this so we appreciate you reporting tonight and you standingpy.
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>> well, it's about 30 seconds after we thought mayor bloomberg of n york city would be stepping to the podium but we are told he is moments away and we are wait to go hear a terrorism-related word from him. we have gotten in some details about an investigation that is breaking open here in new york, having to do with a threat of
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terror. let's go back to laura engel who is live in our new york city newsroom where she is gathering information about what is coming in about whathe mayor may be telling the nation moments from now. >> right now we are hearing from our local report and from the wires, as well, as we've been reporting here that this man was arrested over the weekend sometime yesterday in what police believe is a lone wolf scenario. they apparently have been tailing this 27-year-old american. he's described as hispanic, somebody who lives with his mother in new york city. they have been following him, watching his movements very closely for the at least two years, and as jennifer griffin reported, her sources saying in the last six weeks they really stepped up their investigation on him, reporting that he was said to have been buying pipe bomb making materials and also was in the process of making those. the targets, we've been told according to the local reports, government workers, returning military personnel and elected
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officials as the target. a. p. now reporting that the new york police cars also the target, as well. moments away we are going to hear from mayor michael bloomberg, new york police commissioner mike kelly and manhattan district attorney cyrus vance and also the new york city intelligence division was involved in the arrest. we are waiting more details as we wait for them all to come to microphone. >> i'm seeing the new york city intelligence division crossing the wires right now as you are saying it. it is hitting other wire services, as well, as we await the mayor of new york city to tell us some of what you have just said, laura, and also perhaps more detail on all of this. i know you have been making calls, possibly have talked with the police departments tonight to see what kind of reaction is happening already in the city. when you talk about terror-related topics anytime in new york city, there's already some response among citizens. >> there certainly is. this is the busiest time of the
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year for new york city right now. the big apple is all dressed up for the holidays, we are on the eve of thanksgiving here, we have a strong police presence that's already out and about due to the holiday activity. yes, we've been told that security will be stepped up and we are waiting to hear more on that topic as these -- as our officials come to the mics. >> and we are about three minutes on the other side of 7:30 right now eastern time. we were told that the mayor would be making his announcement as he steps up to the podium we will certainly bring it to everyone. laura, we appreciate it. we will bring you back as the news warrants. thank you. again, this is the pressroom where we are expected to see new york city mayor michael bloomberg moments away. wait, i'm hearing -- i do see some movement in the room now. so we may be just moments away but we are going to move on here until he steps up. we will keep our eye, the corner of our eye, a watch on this and we may split screen this so you
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can watch with us. a terror related news conference just moments away. i can tell you from watching and look in at some of the journal efforts in the room, some of the evidence that the mayor will be talking about is what those reporters are taking pictures of. see the guys in the middle of the floor on their knees with cameras? there's an easel with some of the photographs of evidence in this case, apparently, that they are taking photographs of. so we know that there will be some visual participation, too, among the police authorities who are going to be there, mayb explaining some details about this investigation. from our producer in the booth i am going to ask if she can possibly hear the person at that podium. all right, we will step back to this as soon as we see the mayor walk into the room. for now our other fox top story. it is time for that super committee in congress to make a decision. of on how its twelve-member panel plan to cut $12.2 trillion
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from the deficit. a live look at capitol hill where negotiations continue. in just a few hours they will either pitch a plan to the congressional budget office or throw in the towel. tonight we are learning failure may be the more likely scenario and if that is the case our nation's defense budget could take a half trillion dollars hit. same goes for other programs, including medicare for seniors. right now a political deadlock stands in the way of a deal. >> you can't say you are going to take benefits away from services that people paid for like social security and medicare and not ask our wealthiest americans. we thought maybe there could be some common ground for fundamental tax reform that could help create jobs, make the tax code fair, simpler,ore competitive. >> and the deadline to financial disaster, as some of turning it, just around the corner and eats likely we will see a big blame game taking shape politically in the coming days. we will let you know if there is any breaking news on that story, as well.
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we are monitoring it at the hour, as well. and what happens in washington d.c. the next few days could determine your own personal financial future because as we reported earlier, our nation's credit rating hinges on the super committee's success. if the u.s. standing takes another hit as it already did some summer there's a strong possibility we will see a chain reaction in the market that could once again change the economic landscape at home and even overseas. >> a super committee failure could mean something much less than super for both the u.s. and us as americans. a downgrade of the nation's debt. ratings agency s & p. down graded our debt for the first time in history for much less back in august. another agencies, moody's, has us on negative credit watch perhaps waiting for the super committee. fitch, like moody's, still gives the u.s. a top-notch rating but
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has concerns. many analysts believe the super committee's failure to make a deal would trigger at least one of the rating agencies to take our debt from double a plus to double a. remember the impact of the first and only other downgrade last summer? stocks sank around the world. we saw the largest one-day sell off since the credit crisis in 2008. the dow down 600 points in one day. consumer confidence also sharply declined. you would expect that a lower credit rating would send interest rates sky high. it didn't. the fed's buying binge in a time of economic certainty sent rates way down. and guess what? stocks went up later. yes, bottom line, a downgrade means our credit is riskier, just as if your credit rating fell 100 points, you would be viewed as a riskier borrower. the big difference, you don't have a money printing machine like the fed does, and you can't
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buy your own debt like the fed has shown it will do. so a downgrade, if the super committee is less than super, probably what will happen? well, the markets are expecting it. and the fed may stand ready to help the economy from falling more and your interest rates from jumping. harris, back to you. >> brenda, thank you very much. let's get back to the story that is breaking this hour in new york city. mayor michael bloomberg expected to appear to the left of the screen here for a news conference that is terror-related. now into the fox news room we are starting to get some more details. apparently there's an investigation that has gone on. police have singled out a suspect who perhaps was targeting, including police squad cars, including many targets here, various targets in the new york city area. they say that he is an american citizen, jose, charged with three charges, conspiracy,
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weapons possession among them. laura, what are you learning? >> you mentioned the three charges. this also coming from the court documents. he will be charged in a state complaint, we've been told and was arrested allegedly while in the process of making pipe bombs. as we wait for the mayor and the police commissioner and the manhattan d. a. to get up to the mike phones, we are monitoring some other wires and we are monitoring all of our local reports to bring you the latest on what everyone else is saying, as well. the case obviously terror-related but we've been told there's no imminent threat because the suspect now is under arrest and they believe this is a lone wolf scenario, that there are no other ties. they believe he trained himself on the internet, scouring websites on how to make a pipe bomb. as many know that information is readily available on the internet. that is what we are hearing in these initial moments before we get to the news conference.
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>> with any of these types of cases, laura, you always hear the question is there anybody else involved. are there any casings why they are so sure he's a lone wolf? >> we know he's been under investigation for quite some time. police have been tailing him for up to two years, we have heard so far. and in the last six weeks we've been told, as jennifer griffin reported, they have really stepped it up and following him even more closely. he reportedly had gone to buy pipe bomb material. he was allegedly in the act of making them. we don't know at what stage. but the investigators believe this was enough to go on and moved in on this arrest. >> again, we are learning the charges against this man, jose, three charges including conspiracy and weapons possession. i will ask you to stand by. you mentioned jennifer griffin. i want to go back to her on the phone now. jennifer, are you with us? >> yes, harris.
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>> we reported earlier there might be an al-qaeda connection with this jose pinmental, the suspect in this case. how important is is that? >> if there was a strong international connection or al-qaeda connection, there would be an fbi involved. we are told this is a state matter and it's not being dealt with at the federal level. that is significant in terms of putting it into context. it's significant they were watching him the last two and a half years. they say there was an informant involved and jose was preparing pipe bombs. but that is not necessarily something that, you know, this does not bring this to a federal level. while it's significant that he was so-called a digital jihad i felt, learning how to make bombs off the internet, what we are hearing is according to the state complaint he doesn't necessarily have any ties to
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international terrorism. it's a case of homegrown terrorism. what is interesting is since january, 2009, every two to three weeks since then, according to our own katheryn, there's been a case of homegrown terrorism but with international ties. so this would be, again, we are going to learn more details in the next few minutes , but at this point it looks like this is a state complaint. >> all right. jennifer griffin, and also laura ingle standing by, our journalists covering the story tonight. we will continue to monitor the situation. as we wait for michael bloomberg of new york city to step to the podium in the center of the screen and tell the city of new york, the state of new york and the nation what has happened with this terror related investigation. stay close. rtual wallet gathers your spending and saving in one place. credit and debit purchases,
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mayor bloomberg. >> and the chief -- head of the chief of the investigations division. yesterday afternoon new york city police offices arrested a 278-year-old al-qaeda sympathizer who was plotting to bomb police patrol cars and postal facilities, as well as members of our armed forces returning from abroad. jose pimentel, of washington heights, which is in the northern end of manhattan, faces crutch related charges that district attorney vance will discuss in a moment. earlier today i also described this case to u.s. congressman pete king, the chair of the house committee on homeland security, who has long been a
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champion. federal support for the nypd's anti-terrorism efforts. they did outstanding work in tracking this individual and containing the threat he posed to the city. the police also con struck -- constructed a duplicate of an explosive device the suspect built and detonated it in the way he expended to use his weapons. we want to show you a video about the resulting damage. [explosion sounds]
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used to join two points as the main housing for the bombs. right here is an elbow joint. this is what one bomb looked like. there were three of these. he made three bombs. this is the clock that would ignite it. he also planned to affix nails to them as additional shrapnel. pimental planned to make three bombs to begin with, as i say. he already drilled holes into the elbow joints to accommodate devices when emergency service police officers entered an apartment in washington heights at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. they were accompanied by the bomb squad and intelligence division detectives who took him into custody without incident. the nypd has been keeping track
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of jose pimental since may of 2009 when he talked about violence and more intensely in recent weeks as he acted on it. we had always planned to take him into custody before he could detonate a fully operational bomb. we did not want him to trigger it. even accidentally and put neighbors and others at risk. that's why we had emergency service officers standing by to take down the door, if necessary. pimental planned to test the effectiveness of the bombs by planting them in mailboxes and detonating them. once his bombing campaign again, he said, the public would know that there were mujadeen in the city to fight jihad here. as indicated, he was a lone woman. as you know, there have also been plots against 9/11 -- since 9/11 directed against the city by al-qaeda central and it's
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affiliates, including one to take down the brooklyn bridge and to bomb the subway system. we keep a 360-degree perimeter as a result, looking for al-qaeda central, it's affiliates or lone wolves to return here to kill more new yorkers. we remain the nation's financial capital. we remain its communications capital. and a world stage in which terrorists can get the most bang for the buck. for the outstanding work for the officer involved and the district attorney, the buck stopped in washington heights yesterday afternoon. mr. mayor. >> commissioner, thank you. i would like to now ask district attorney vance to comment on the case. sir. >> thank you, mayor, commissioner kelly, chief, ladies and gentlemen. the safety of our citizens is the primary responsibility of any district attorney. and for the manhattan district attorney's office, that b must
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include a commitment to and an expertise in terrorist threats both abroad and at home. manhattan, as the commissioner said, is what they hate about the west and this city will continue to be a target in the years to come. we are fortunate to have a police department that has risen to the challenge of addressing a global threat that focus on our city. and we support ray kelly and the nypd in addressing that threat. in combating this terrorist threat, as we all know, without special vigilance, the results will be deadly. our officed to filed charges against jose pimental of manhattan for conspiring to build a bomb for terrorist purposes and for possessing a bomb, a pipe bomb, that he intended to use to wage his campaign of violence. he stated his belief in jihad
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and you could see that from his website, true islam. he posted articles on osama bin laden, discussed the duty of every muslim it wage war in the rest and identified himself with terrorist organizations. he was a leader to the online magazine "inspire" and to inspire him it did. the bomb he built came straight from the pages of inspire magazine and state add desire to attack our servicemen and women as they return from iraq and afghanistan could have come from an al-qaeda playbook. homegrown extremists are one of the faces of terrorism that we are now facing and foreign terrorist organizations attempt to recruit our own citizens to take up armed jihad against their own neighbors. the threats against us change constantly, and our challenge in law enforcement is to balance
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vigilance and prepareedness that gain who we are as a civil society. to do this we will employ the tried and true techniques that serve us for decades. we follow the rule of law and act aggressively but responsibly. in the fight against the shifting and difficult to identified local terror threat there is an important role to play for local prosecutors working in coordination with our federal counter parts as we did in this case and we will continue to work within the law and employ all the tools available to us to prevent a local terrorist attack and to keep our citizens safe. thank you, mayor. >> before taking questions let me just summarize our announcement for our spanish-speaking new yorkers. [speaking spanish]
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>> with that we will be happy to take questions if anybody has any. yes, miss. >> mr. mayor, do you have any information as to how or why -- >> ray? >> i don't think we can say any specific reason but it's a process that we've seen in the past where a young man does a lot of reading, perhaps he does a lot of research on the internet, and we think that an event that really set him off was the elimination of anwar alwaki. that happened earlier this year. although he decided to build a bomb starting in august of this year. but clearly, based on statements
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of people who observed him, his actions became a lot more intense after september 30th. >> could you explain what this is right here on the table? is this a duplicate put together? and can you explain the photo there? >> this is a device made -- [inaudible] >> and this is the trigger dwight. what happened is he set a time. when it hit this screw, there's a full circuit here, and it causes a detonation. inside of this case this
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actually stays off material from over -- [inaudible] and this is outlined in the magazine from "inspire." his intentions was to glue nails on to this device to make more shrapnel. and sort of a tower of this relatively small device you see in the film. taking the material off the matches. >> is this from a website or -- >> this is what? >> where is this photo from? >> this is from the apartment where he was assembling his bombs. yes, miss. >> you mentioned earlier, did
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they have contact or did you gather information from investigators? did they come to you with this information? >> she talked about like-minded people that were mentioned, where did we get the information about the guy. >> well, we have been involved with this individual since 2009. this came to us through our century program, police department in other locations, police departments in upper -- in the albany area, gave us information about this individual. we gathered that information while he was being surveilled. >> yes, miss. >> yeah. did you work with other departments and can you explain if they were involved and how? >> i can't hear. >> if the feds were involved and how. >> yes, the federal government
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has been fully informed of this case. we had to act quickly yesterday because he was, in fact, putting this bomb together. he was drilling the holes and it would have been -- it would have been not appropriate for us to let him walk out the door with that bomb. so the decision was made to act quickly. we had been talking, of course, the district attorney is fully involved in this case and has been involved working with us. so we thought it was best to act quickly yesterday and take him into custody. nypd with the district attorney's office, with the district attorney's advice. >> did they -- afterwards or -- [inaudible] >> what? >> you mentioned that you had to
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